


Jun's (questionable) guide on how to go out with your crush

by SheepyPeanut



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon, Silly. Very silly., gx rivalshipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-02 22:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16795861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SheepyPeanut/pseuds/SheepyPeanut
Summary: In which Juudai stays at Jun's stupid apartment, keeps on getting injured in increasingly stupid ways, looks at Jun with those stupidly pretty eyes, and is stupidly impossible not to ask out, because Jun never claimed to have good taste or anything.Or: Manjoume figuring out his heart in a series of snapshots.





	Jun's (questionable) guide on how to go out with your crush

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mapleprincess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mapleprincess/gifts).



> The specific prompt: "Jaden and Chazz meet a few years after the series finale. Although they're still rivals, and their relationship is full of teasing and banter, they quickly discover that absence makes the heart grow fonder and that there's more to it than rivalry or even friendship. So, after one of them confesses to the other (your choice), it's Jaden and Chazz's first official date! Where they go and what they do, as well as how far they take it (from kissing to fucking) is up to you."
> 
> Given that it takes 3000 words for the actual "asking out" part to happen, let alone the date, I... may have gotten carried away...
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> ~~also sorry guess who was an idiot and forgot to put this up LAST NIGHT~~

Jun has no idea why, at three in the morning, his phone is ringing, but it is.

He stares at the offending device as it continues to blare out his ringtone from next to his bed. Why had he put that there? Yes, it was because he was expecting a call from a sponsor in the morning and wanted to be woken up if they called earlier than expected, but three in the morning was far, far too early for any sane professional to call. Or, well, for any sane person at all to call.

Any sane person— oh no.

Jun checks the caller ID. It simply says: ‘Drop-out’.

He picks up the phone. “Juudai,” he starts. Before he can finish, though, Juudai starts talking.

“Manjoume I’m coming back to Japan in like, twenty-four hours I just got a plane ticket super cheap and I need a place to stay and listen, Shou and his brother are off touring somewhere when I arrive and Asuka has kind of banned me from staying at her place and I know you were complaining about your apartment being too big last time I called so can I please, please come stay with you?” Jun blinks several times. Processes.

“It is three in the morning,” Jun clarifies, because it is, in fact, three in the morning, and he’s an animal that requires a lot of sleep.

“It is?” says Juudai.

“Time zones,” Jun says, and he hears the muffled sounds of Juudai realizing his mistake.

“Sorry,” says Juudai. “Can I please stay?”

“Yeah, sure,” says Jun, “whatever.” He hangs up before Juudai can start thanking him and immediately falls back asleep.

In hindsight, he probably would not have invited Juudai to stay in the same apartment as him for any length of time if it hadn’t been three in the morning, because of the massive stupid crush he’s had on him since he was fifteen, but, you know, sleep deprivation does weird things to the mind.

Goddamnit.

* * *

Here’s some context: Manjoume Jun hated Yuuki Juudai. He hated the boy with a passion. Or, he’d thought he’d hated the boy right up until Juudai had stolen a boat and run away and left Jun with about twenty-four hours to figure out what the hell was up with that, why his heart hurt, and why he was weirdly proud before a weirdo with the power of a white hole or… something… brainwashed him and hijacked his feelings of inadequacy in comparison in order to take over the world or whatever the hell had been going on, Jun had gotten lost with that somewhere between the cult and the laser. He’d then gotten knocked out of that brainwashing by the same guy who’d run away with the boat, using Jun’s own stupid, useless cards, despite the fact that they wouldn’t have had any synergy whatsoever with Juudai’s deck without a ton of effort going into it first.

As he lost the duel (of-fucking-course), his first thought was: “Oh no, he’s better than Asuka,” because his type is apparently people who can totally kick his ass.

His second thought was: “No one can ever know.”

Everyone but Juudai knew immediately. Jun continued to try to push it down, though. He continued to push it down right through dying and coming back and watching a fog grow in Juudai’s heart and watching everything go tumbling down and built back up, indescribably different than before. No one could ever know. He didn’t have a crush on that moron. He didn’t. (For a few weeks there, he’d thought he was scared of him even, which meant there couldn’t be a crush, and there couldn’t be anything deeper, and there couldn’t be anything but a confusing knot Jun refused to acknowledge.)

Juudai left.

Two months after seeing him for the last time, Jun admitted he missed him. Another four months later and several Skype conversations, and he admitted that, shit, no, he couldn’t hide this crush. 

See, it might just be more than just a crush. On a guy who liked to replace emotional connections with finger-guns. On a guy who had amber eyes that were like staring into a hurricane, on a guy who was a hurricane, with all the subtly and gentleness of one (but also all the sheer strength of one). On a guy who smiled like a kid in a candy shop, once you cracked past the surface again. On a guy who smiled at Jun like Jun was his best friend.

Jun was fucked.

* * *

Juudai arrives at nine at night, looking somewhat like a raccoon had attacked him, in Jun’s expert opinion. He has bags under his eyes, his hair is sticking out in several directions, and he was somehow very cut up. He has a goofy look on his face.

“Hiya, Manjoume!” he says.

“Manjoume-san,” Jun corrects without heat. “How did you get in a fight on a plane…?”

“I didn’t get into a fight on the plane,” Juudai explains. He pauses. “I tripped.”

“You tripped.”

“Yeah, I tripped.”

“Into a blender?” asks Jun, incredulously.

“Not exactly,” says Juudai, “but I was carrying a knife-“

“Please,” says Jun, “for my own sanity, please, don’t tell me anything else.” Juudai reluctantly nods, and Jun herds him inside. He doesn’t ask how the heck Juudai got a knife onto a plane. He doesn’t ask more about why Juudai is probably trying to downplay the… whatever it was that happened. They have boundaries now, and most of Jun’s boundaries exist in an attempt to prevent himself from going totally nuts. They aren’t the world’s widest or stupidest boundaries, really. Just boundaries of “Juudai is not allowed to tell me some of the crazier spirit shenanigans that go on.”

“You’ll be staying on the couch,” Jun says.

“Not giving me your bed?” says Judi.

“Don’t push it,” says Jun, and heads to his own room and closes the door.

“Wow, bro!” says Ojama Yellow. “You have it bad!”

“WHAT DID I EVEN SAY THAT SUGGESTS THAT?”

“Are you okay in there?” says Juudai.

“I’m ABSOLUTELY FINE,” shouts Jun, before burying his face in his pillow. He’s so, so fucked. So fucked. Because when Juudai showed up- looking exactly like he’d been mauled by a raccoon, Jun might add- all Jun had wanted to do was, was…

Jun steps outside of his room again. “Let me get you some bandages, you fucking moron,” Jun says, and Juudai laughs, and his whole face lights up, and Jun has to look away because his face is turning red, and he can hear Winged Kuriboh making fun of him. (Like the fluffy asshole can talk. Winged Kuriboh was, after all, the first of many to fall into Juudai’s orbit…)

* * *

“What you need to do, my dear disciple of love,” Fubuki says over the phone the next morning, after Juudai has left with a vague ‘Shou wanted to see me about something’ and Jun had told him to stuff it because he didn’t care where Juudai went, “is to ask him out on a date.”

“No,” says Jun. “No I do not.”

“Oooh,” Ojama Green says, “are you arguing with Fubuki-senpai again?” That question is enough to get the other Ojama brothers, an Armed Dragon, and, for some reason, W-Wing Catapult all over to try to listen into the conversation. Jun makes a shooing motion while trying to shake his head in denial. None of the spirits listen, the freeloaders. “He is!” says Ojama Green.

“Oh, relationship drama,” agrees Ojama Black. W-Wing Catapult makes an agreeing mechanical sound that Jun wishes he couldn’t recognize was a sound of agreement. Why did the pair of robot dragon wings care about his love life, anyway?

“Not drama,” says Jun, “there won’t be any drama.”

“Take risks with life!” says Fubuki. “Ask him out! Then, next time he comes to stay in your apartment, you won’t have to cry any longer!”

“I have not been crying,” mumbles Manjoume.

“Of course,” agrees Fubuki.

“And I’m not asking him out on a date, senpai. Do you remember the one time I tried to ask someone on a date seriously? I almost caused the end of the world.” Nothing put a damper on asking a girl out than somehow causing an apocalypse, after all, and the less that was said about the three sacred beasts incident, the better. It had been embarrassing, damn it!

"An exaggeration!" Fubuki says.

"It's really not!" Jun says, and resists the urge to bury his head in his hands as the Armed Dragon in question— Level Five, it's always Level Five— pats him on the back consolingly.

"Well, you know that Juudai doesn't eat enough," Fubuki starts, and Jun practically wails:

"IT'S JUUDAI!"  
  
"You know that Juudai can never eat enough," Fubuki corrects, "so why not try asking him out to a lovely, romantic, candlelit restaurant? A seafood place, perhaps? You can sit together under the glistening light, two teenagers, deeply and abidingly in love... ah, it makes my heart race!" 

“I’m not asking him out,” Jun says. “I can resist his presence in my apartment for a few days!”

“You call me so frequently about him, though!” Fubuki says dramatically.

“You do,” agrees Ojama Black.

“He’s not here right now! He’ll be about visiting his friends all the time. I’ll be fine. I’m not asking him out! That’s final!”

And, Jun swears on his life, W-Wing Catapult _whimpers_.

“Alright, kohai,” says Fubuki, and it’s almost serious. “Whatever you say. Just remember to have fun while he’s here!” Fubuki pauses, and for a moment, Jun can remember that Fubuki is Juudai’s friend too, and not just that, but his sister is Juudai’s friend as well. “If it’s you that dragged him out of wherever he was off hiding, then you should hold onto whatever got him to stick around this time around.”

“He came to visit Shou and Asuka,” Manjoume says, “and Kenzan, who’s back from America. They wouldn’t let him stay with them. I told you this.” Not that Jun blames them (he does, he totally does) for sticking him with the biggest disaster of their friend group (seriously even _he_ has a real job by now) and giving Jun a daily heart attack. Juudai isn’t always the best boarder. He ate breakfast before Jun could even wake up and left a very cryptic note about Shou and machine monsters.

“Oh, that’s right, isn’t it?” says Fubuki. “Just think about it, alright? Go do something fun together as friends.”

“Yeah,” says Jun, “okay. We’ll see… I don’t know, what’s the good pro match that’s going to be around while he’s in town?”

“Ah, duelists in love,” says Fubuki.

“Shut it,” says Jun.

“Ah,” says Ojama Black, “duelists in love,” and Jun tries to strangle him. 

* * *

Juudai doesn’t show back up at Jun’s apartment until nearly four that afternoon. Jun, after his conversation with Fubuki, had done market research— none of the upcoming matches in the pro dueling circuit were going to be fun enough to argue about, which would take most of the fun out of it. They were all either matchups expected to be blowouts or the kind of matched Jun couldn’t sit through, the ones that were guaranteed to be grind games of slow draws and slower deck destruction, until either one player ran out of cards to draw or the ran out of ways to stop their opponent from using those cards.

It wasn’t Juudai enough. Which lead Jun back to square one, going through his own deck, when Juudai arrived back at his apartment.

“Honey, I’m home!” Juudai says, shouting through the door. Jun realizes that Juudai doesn’t have a key. Huh. Jun had gotten used to Juudai getting in the typically unlocked doors of the past that he’d forgotten that, here, people _locked_ doors, and that Juudai didn’t have any magical lock-picking skills that—

—wait.

“DON’T SAY THAT WHERE EVERYONE CAN HEAR!” Jun shouts, scrambling to go open the door. Juudai has… a black eye. “…how?” Jun says.

“A tree punched me,” Juudai says. “Wait, no, I mean, I was running, and I didn’t see the tree, so I ran into it.”

“The punch was more believable,” Jun says, “unless you ran into that tree with your eye, and only your eye.” Staying quiet and out of Juudai’s spirit shennanigans, that was the rule… “Did Marufuji at least ice it?”

“Yeah,” says Juudai, “after he finished scolding me. Said something about not needing two injury prone brothers…”

“Obviously,” Jun says. “Come on back in.” Even with a black eye, Juudai’s eyes are pretty, Jun thinks. So’s Juudai’s face. Mostly. It’s kind of squashed right now, and he’s still bandaged up from… “falling on a knife in the airport” (jesus christ). 

“Hey,” says Juudai, “you know what’s for dinner? I’m famished!”

“You do nothing but eat,” says Jun. Juudai just laughs infuriatingly.

“You know me so well!” he says, wandering towards the kitchen.

“It’s four,” Jun says. “Wait until dinner at least.”

“Is it?” says Juudai.

“Yeah,” says Jun, “it is. Get in here. I was going over my deck for my next match. You gonna be here for it?” He sees the guilty look in Juudai’s eyes before Juudai can say anything else. “Yeah,” says Jun, “didn’t think so. Get over here.”

“Got it,” says Juudai, “got it.”

They spend the rest of the afternoon, and evening, and frankly, most of the night going over cards. Juudai seems unusually partial to Union Hanger today. Well, that and some of the Ojama engine (Ojamassimilation being a card that the two of them used to joke had been made with Jun specifically in mind). But, seriously, Juudai was apparently pretty heavily thinking machine unions right now. Jun thought of W-Wing Catapult’s whimpers the whole time, and he can’t help it.

“Where are you going after this?” he asks.

“Um,” Juudai says, and looks away. “It’s urgent. I made a promise, right?” He doesn’t clarify more. 

“How long?” Jun asks, realizing that he hadn’t asked that back when Juudai had asked to stay at all. “How long will you be in town?”

“…three more days,” Juudai admits. “Sorry if I’m sticking around too long?” 

Jun swallows. “Ugh,” he says instead. “No wonder no one else was willing to put up with you for that long.”

“Yeah,” Juudai says, “no wonder, right?” He rubs the back of his head. “Luckily, I know just how to bully you into giving me a room!”

“Is that what you were doing?” Jun asks.

“Nope!” Juudai says.

“You smug liar,” Jun says, and swallows back the feeling as hard as he can. Three more days. It’s longer than anyone should stay in someone’s apartment after only giving a twenty-four hour warning and without being able to compensate the other party in any way. It’s impolite, is what it is.

Impolite, not to stick around longer at that point.

Three days.

“You won’t even be around for any interesting pro matches,” Jun complains, “so I won’t have any excuse to get out of the house while you’re here!”

“You’re absolutely stuck with me,” Juudai agrees. “…I’m gonna go jump on your bed, because you’re way too nice to kick me out for it!”

“YOU ARE TWENTY,” Jun says as Juudai races out of the room with something between childish glee and utter insanity on his face. Jun gets up to chase him, and for a moment, the time limit is chased out of his mind. Time limit for what, anyway, right? It wasn’t like Jun planned on doing anything special, he hadn’t had any warning! There wasn’t a…

* * *

So there was a time limit, he realized that night, and he wanted to do something _special_ with Juudai, and oh no, he was going to ask Juudai out on a date.

Fubuki would never let him hear the end of it.

* * *

“How do you get even more bruised in your sleep?”

“Practice?”

Juudai had, in fact, gotten more bruised in his sleep, and reluctantly, Jun goes to go get ice and bandages and also try to collect his thoughts. He has some cleaning up to do for Juudai, sure, but also wants to shake Juudai’s shoulders and gently tell him that Jun liked taking care of him but this was going too far—

—liked taking care of—

“You have it so bad, boss,” Ojama Green says.

“Have it bad?” Juudai asks from across the room?

“If you know what’s good for you,” Jun says, “you’ll both shut up.” Winged Kuriboh chitters. Ojama Green opens his mouth, and Jun shoves the spirit inside a drawer before pulling out both bandages and, after some thought, some eggs for breakfast. (After some thought, he’d been thinking all night. He hadn’t slept.)

“Seriously, what?” says Juudai. “Hey, Thunder,” says Juudai, and Jun feels himself turn red from head to toe, “what you got bad?”

“Annoyance!” says Jun, hiding his face in a cabinet. ‘Thunder’, just… casually like that? Jun knew Juudai was fond of stupid nicknames (not that Thunder was a stupid nickname, it was a perfectly valid nickname, thank you, and Jun was very proud of it).

“Okay, Jun,” says Juudai.

“M- Manjoume-san!” Jun corrects, because if Juudai calls him that one more time he’ll spontaneously combust.

“Aw, come on,” says Juudai. “We’ve been friends since we were fourteen!”

“Says _you_ ,” says Jun, still hiding in the cabinet. Winged Kuriboh chitters again, and Juudai tilts his head like he’s listening to someone that isn’t there, and oh, oh no, Jun’s just remembered that Yubel technically listens in on all of Juudai’s conversations right now and is privy to every time Jun embarrasses himself in front of Juudai. Juudai, Jun can comfort himself with, is a total moron, and would not notice that Jun’s been hiding in the kitchen for far, far longer than he needs to have been hiding. Yubel, on the other hand, would _definitely_ notice, and would think something was up, which was technically true, it’s just that the thing that was up was the fact that Jun was just about on fire.

Juudai laughs again, like Jun had thrown a proper insult, instead of a weak denial. (Jun had long given up on getting Juudai to ever, ever believe him when he said he hated Juudai. Jun was (so very glad for it) constantly annoyed by this.)

“Whatever. You coming back out here?”

“Yes,” says Jun.

“Soon?” asks Juudai.

“Yes,” says Jun, and tries to remember that he’s heard Juudai sing loudly in the shower, very, very badly. This only helps somewhat. On the one hand, Juudai’s fifteen-year-old voice cracks were impressively awful. On the other hand… Juudai in the shower.

He steps back outside with bruise cream, burn cream, bandages, and a carton of eggs.

“Did you mean to cook those?” Juudai asks.

“Yes,” mutters Jun.

“…are you okay? You’re kind of red.”

He definitely hears laughing. Juudai’s a picture of concern, but the monsters around him are laughing, and it’s the _worst._

“I’m _fine_ ,” says Jun, and he starts the eggs cooking, and he starts cleaning up Juudai, and they sit down to eat together, and he tries to think of his very smooth plan to ask Juudai out before Juudai leaves in— two days now. Two days. Man, he hates deadlines, but it only takes one date, right?

“Hey, Manjoume,” says Juudai. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Come get dinner with me tonight,” Jun says.

“Ah!” says Juudai. “You’re— sweet! I love— but I, um, Asuka and Kenzan.”

“What?”

“Tomorrow night?” says Juudai, before Jun can think that Juudai’s rejecting him. Was that a yes? “Tomorrow night, because, listen, you have great taste in restaurants, but I’m gonna be out late tonight, okay? Then we can totally go eat somewhere! Man, I don’t even remember what the good places around here are!” Jun feels his heart doing something that he doesn’t even want to think about. 

“You did it, boss!” says Ojama Yellow. Jun just ignores him. Juudai just looks bemused.

“What’s so hard about asking me to go get a bite to eat with him? Not like we haven’t done stuff like that before,” asks Juudai, and for a moment, Jun thinks about correcting him. Just a moment.

“Nothing,” says Jun. “Tomorrow night? Get nice clothes while you’re out, you look like a drowned clown.” No he doesn’t. Juudai looks like… like a hot biker or something, with the jacket with the tears and that constant windswept look he’s had recently, but Manjoume knows this nice, formal seafood restaurant, and the red and green jackets Juudai’s gone with lately just aren’t really going to cut it for there. Jun’s going to have to wear proper formalwear, too. It’s… gonna be something.

* * *

Jun falls asleep before Juudai gets back the next day. He doesn’t mean to. He gave Juudai a key before he left, but he’d still intended to be awake to let him in. He’s been sitting on the couch, going through a deck that’s currently focused on light machine fusions and wondering what Asuka and Kenzan could possibly be doing with Juudai that’s taking so long. He could call and ask, in theory. He could.

Calling Asuka is awkward, though, and he wasn’t really friends with Kenzan exactly.

He sits on the couch until he falls asleep, and when he wakes up again, rubbing his neck awkwardly, a blanket that hadn’t been there before he’d fallen asleep falls off of him.

(Juudai isn’t an entirely bad roommate.)

* * *

The next day passes in a weird blur until it’s actually time for dinner. Jun takes one look at Juudai when he shuffles out of his room and says: “you need a stylist better than me before you can even step _inside of_ the place we’re going.”

“What?” says Juudai.

“You look like a giraffe used you as a chew toy,” Jun clarifies. 

“Oh,” says Juudai. “I guess I can ask Asuka or Fubuki or something?”

“Fubuki,” says Jun, before realizing that the mere idea means both that Jun’s just locked _himself_ out of being able to use Fubuki as a stylist and that Juudai’s going to be exposed to Fubuki, who has known about Jun’s crush practically longer than Jun _himself_ has known about that crush. “Go talk to Fubuki,” Jun says again anyway, remembering Fubuki’s words about how Juudai’s rarely around and remembering their friendship too, before shoving Juudai out of the door before he can worry too much about how Juudai got to looking like as much of a mess as he had.

Once Juudai’s out of the door, it’s a blur of choosing outfits, but also a blur of a lot of other things. For one thing, W-Wing Catapult, X-Head Canon, and V-Tiger Jet all have opinions today, and Level Seven is busy adding input too. They’re all way too invested in his love life, Jun thinks, and that doesn’t even begin to cover the Ojamas, who spend most of the day arguing about what tie Jun should wear.

(He ends up picking one that X-Head Canon suggests, actually, and it wasn’t just to spite the Ojamas or anything. The grey tie actually looks quite nice.)

He’d made the reservation the other day. He spends a lot of the rest of the day wondering what to do. They’ll be on a date. Should he bring flowers? But if he brings flowers, how is he supposed to back out again when he realizes what he’s doing, huh? Maybe not flowers. No, he doesn’t need to bring flowers! He’s Manjoume Thunder! Juudai should be falling at his feet, flowers or no flowers!

That, and Juudai would miss the sentiment of flowers. Chocolate is better for this.

He leaves the apartment for one of the few times he has this week to go buy a box of chocolates. It’s an understated box. It doesn’t look overly romantic or anything— it’s the wrong time of year, after all— but it’s a box of chocolates. Or, well, he almost buys that box of chocolates, but then he sees this chocolate rose, and look, Jun doesn’t know much about romance but that splits the difference between a flower and a chocolate so he buys it, brings it home, wonders if it’s too forward, and wishes he hadn’t sent Juudai to Fubuki.

He could have sent Juudai to _Shou._ Shou was an awful, passive-aggressive, sarcastic little person. He was also the only one of Juudai’s idiot friends that was sensible (other than Asuka, but Asuka is a queen and also Jun wasn’t going to inflict Juudai trying to decide how fashion works on Asuka, he’s not that cruel). He’d make sure Juudai didn’t do anything too stupid while getting cleaned up, but no, Manjoume sent Juudai to one of _his own_ only friends, and his most romantic friend, too…

…Juudai would only be here today and tomorrow, though, so this was it! This was the date! No cancelling so that Jun could have a day with Fubuki to fix this—

—a text message?

“Way to score! Great choice!  👍 ”

Thanks, Fubuki.

(…actually, that did make Jun feel a lot better.)

* * *

Juudai eventually asks Jun to just meet him at the restaurant. At first, Jun’s confused; he never actually told Juudai _which_ restaurant they were going to. A text from Fubuki confirms, however, that Fubuki just knows Jun too well and knew exactly which restaurant they were going to. This doesn’t stop Manjoume from asking: “why can’t I just walk with him there?”

“Trust me,” says Fubuki, “you cannot possibly do that!”

“This isn’t our wedding,” says Jun. “I can see his outfit before we get to the restaurant.”

“Your wedding,” Fubuki says dreamily.

“Yeah,” says Jun, before pausing and waving his hands. “I mean, no! Not that! Wedding? You’re not allowed to— I wasn’t implying—” He can already hear the Ojamas dreamily conversing about a wedding, which might be the most absurd idea Jun’s ever heard. Getting Juudai pinned down long enough to plan a wedding would take too long, even if Juudai would look very nice in a white tuxedo…

“Now, you don’t want to walk with Juudai to the restaurant,” Fubuki says, “you want to meet him at the door, alright? Myself and his friends will drop him off for your wonderful night out together!” Jun gave in, because he knew full well that once Fubuki decided something (especially when Fubuki decided something about matters of the heart), there was very little anyone could do to make the elder Tenjoin to budge. Honestly, it was one of the things Jun admired about Fubuki, his ability to plant his feet where he decided to be and be that person through the storm.

(It was one of the things he loved about Juudai, too— that even cracked and bent and sanded down and tossed in the thunder and lightning, Juudai was still recognizably Juudai, even if the shape of what that meant changed. He was still, fundamentally, an idiot who tried to deflect anyone from getting too close while constantly handing his whole heart over, over and over again, and Jun kind of felt overwhelmed every time Juudai did it.)

(Just thinking about Juudai like that was enough to distract Jun some days. He’d walk Juudai to the airport tomorrow. Yeah.)

After the phone call, Jun changes into his own outfit. A black collared shirt is the furthest departure from his normal outfit he could bear to make, and the steel-grey tie stands out against the black. Black pants, black shoes, Jun knows he’s the monochrome vision of a storm cloud sky. Or at least, that’s the _hope_. He might just look, well, grey. The one spark of color is the bright red foil on the chocolate flower he’s brought with him.

He walks to the restaurant. He spends most of the time trying to shoo off the spirits that perennially follow him. He in no way wants the Ojamas involved in his date. They know Juudai can hear them, right? They have to know Juudai can hear them.

When he gets to the restaurant, still being tailed by all three Ojama Brothers, waxing poetic about the merits of going on a romantic date at a fancy seafood place.

That had nothing to do with why he chose the seafood place, though. He’d chosen it because he’d _seen_ Juudai pack down shrimp before, okay? He figured if he was going to go out on a limb and eat somewhere, it might as well be somewhere he knew Juudai would like—

— _oh_.

When Jun gets to the restaurant, Juudai’s already waiting outside. Juudai’s not late. Jun knew that Juudai was getting help, but it was Juudai, and he was late to everything and got lost on the way to being late.

That alone is breathtaking, but—

Juudai’s hair is a mess. It looks like something tried to eat it between when Juudai got it brushed out and had gotten to the restaurant. His clothes are a little rumpled, but they’re sharp, sharper than anything Jun had seen Juudai wear in a while, and red, the red shirt Juudai’s wearing got unbuttoned, because, even when forced into a rumpled cotton red collar shirt to look nice, Juudai couldn’t go formality. The tie he’s wearing like an afterthought is steel grey. It almost matches Jun’s. It’s mostly untied, though. He’s wearing relatively normal formal pants, though he’s not actually wearing any kind of belt and his shirt isn’t tucked in and it looks like he tried to run through the mud or something with the otherwise perfectly formal shoes he’s wearing. It’s, overall, not a very good attempt at a formal outfit for a dinner, not when it looks like Juudai had done his level best to turn the otherwise decently formal outfit into informal day wear, or like, something a very perky mobster might wear or something.

It’s… it’s so… Juudai. And he looks… Jun stands there, staring, for just a moment longer. There’s a scuff on Juudai’s cheek. Jun looks from that and back to the outfit, and forgets his words entirely. The tie matches his. In comparison, Jun looks so well put-together that it’s not even funny, but next to each other… He can only imagine…

“Oh, hey!” says Juudai. “Our ties match!”

“At least I’m wearing mine properly,” Jun fires back automatically. It’s an automated defense.

“I’ve got it around my neck, don’t I?” says Juudai.

“It makes you look like you got in a fight,” Jun says, and then hates the way he can feel his cheeks heat up at the idea of Juudai in a fight with an outfit like _that._ On anyone else it wouldn’t be so stunning, but on Juudai— on _Juudai_ —

—on a _date_ with _Juudai_ —

“A fight? Really?” Juudai rubs the back of his head. “I didn’t, I just tripped over a… a pool.”

Jun is stunned again, though this time it has a lot less to do with how much he wants to kiss Juudai until it bruises and more to do with the stunning idiocy of that statement. Juudai isn’t even remotely wet. This does not make Jun want to kiss Juudai any less, it just reminds him of how much he wants to kill Juudai in the process.

“You tripped over a pool?” Jun clarifies. He looks over Juudai again.

“An… empty one,” Juudai says.

_Riiiiight_.

“Let’s go inside,” Jun says, because, as much as his desire not to ask is wavering, he does actually want to have this date. This date with Juudai. He’s actually going to try to date Yuuki Juudai. He should just… wish himself luck…

He hears muffled crying behind him. “Boss,” sobs Ojama Yellow, “making steps to become a true man!” 

“Shut up,” he says, he grabs Juudai’s hand, and as the bemused other man waves to the Ojamas, he drags Juudai inside the restaurant. 

* * *

It only takes them a moment or two to be seated. He sees the waiter give Juudai a bit of a stink-eye for the outfit he still hasn’t cleaned up. Jun gives a glare back. They both glare at each other for a minute.

“Would you boys care for something to drink?” the waiter says instead, and they both order water. Jun, because he’s pretty sure that if he ordered anything even mildly alcoholic, he’d loose his ability to keep his cool. Juudai because… Jun doesn’t know. He does know that he’s never seen Juudai drink anything but sodas, but… it’s been too long.

Way too long.

For a moment, they sit in silence, looking over the menu. “Oh, man,” Juudai says after a moment, “this is more expensive than I thought it would be.” Jun isn’t sure if he was supposed to have heard that.

“I’m paying,” he says.

“You don’t have to,” says Juudai.

“You couldn’t afford a place like this anyway,” Jun says, and pretends he doesn’t see the way Juudai squares his shoulders.

“I’ll pay for my half!” Juudai says.

“Hm,” says Jun, “order what you want.” Jun knows Juudai can’t possibly have that much cash on him, given that Juudai never actually got a real job. He doesn’t care. He watches Juudai look back down at the menu, probably now determined to try to buy something inexpensive. Jun doesn’t expect _that_ to last long. It’s Juudai. He can see the sparkling excitement in Juudai’s eyes over some of the stuff they have available.

It’s… adorable.

Jun is going to get something… small, because his stomach feels weird in ways that he doesn’t want to think too hard about right now. Just a small salmon dish is fine with him. Juudai, meanwhile, seems to have made a decision too, because his head pops up.

“Oh, did you hear?” Juudai says. “There’s gonna be this new booster set people’re talking about!” He waves his hands. “People are talking about it a bunch because it has all of this new support for older cards like, like, I think they’re coming out with a lot of new machine support! More importantly, though, new HEROs! There’s this fusion, Absolute Zero, and it looks, like, super awesome.”

“You think that’s the more important one?” Jun says. “Please. I don’t deny that Absolute Zero will be a cornerstone of a lot of HERO decks, there are hardly _any_ competitive HERO decks out there in the pro scene. Reprints of Limiter Remover, however, are going to make some already dominant machines a lot harder to beat.”

“You gonna put any in with your A-to-Z guys?” Jun pauses, momentarily confused.

“They start with V,” he reminds Juudai.

“Right, yeah, of course,” Juudai says. “The reprinted Limiter Remover! You gonna use it?”

“Likely not,” sniffs Jun, “I don’t run mindless OTKs.”

“Right,” says Juudai, nodding seriously. “Say, if you’re gonna say that HEROs are irrelevant on the pro scene, does that mean your managers finally agreed to give you that rematch against Edo?”

“We’re _working on it_ ,” says Jun. “Besides, he runs _Destiny HEROs_ mostly, not your Elemental HEROs. Reluctant as I am to admit it…”

“Oh, come on Jun-bug,” starts Juudai, and Jun _chokes_ on his water.

“ _Excuse me?_ ” he says.

“We’ve already proven that Edo’s dudes aren’t nearly as cool as my truly fantastic Elemental HEROs! A duel for the ages!” says Juudai, completely ignoring the stupid nickname. Jun sputters for several moments while Juudai looks very, very pleased.

“He didn’t have Malicious yet,” Jun counters, “or Plasma.”

“Yeah, well,” Juudai says, “I didn’t have some of my aces yet, either! Like, uh, I didn’t have any of my newer Neos cards, or Honest, or Honest Neos! I bet I could still beat him.” He winks in Jun’s direction. “Plus, you just hesitated. That totally means I’m right.”

“It means you called me so beyond your normal idiocy that I was stunned into silence!” he corrects. “It’s Manjoume-san, not, not… Jun-bug!”

“I don’t know,” says Juudai, “I like Jun-bug. It’s cute!”

“I’m not cute!” Jun says, before his brain catches up with his mouth and he turns even more red than he already looks.

“You sure are,” Juudai says, “ _Thunder-kun_.”

“If you say that within earshot of the press,” Jun says, feeling like someone’s lit him on fire, “I will actually strangle you. I’ll do it. I’ve been fantasizing about it since we were fourteen, don’t think I won’t.”

“Kinky,” says Juudai.

“GODDAMNIT,” says Jun.

He immediately turns red when the disapproving waiter turns to him. They’re making the waiter kind of hostile at this point, aren’t they? Well, whatever. The waiter doesn’t seem to recognize Jun or anything, so it’s not like they’ll be sold out to a gossip rag or anything. The waiter takes their orders while Juudai— looking totally unrepentant, the moron— orders a pretty large shrimp dish that, honestly, Jun could have totally predicted he’d want. Jun orders his small salmon thing, and then the waiter leaves, nose turned up.

“Man,” says Juudai, “what’s his problem?”

“You noticed,” Jun says.

“I mean, yeah,” Juudai says. “I’m not an idiot.”

“Is that so,” Jun says.

“Shut up,” Juudai says, “I can tell when people don’t like me!”

“If you could do that,” Jun says before he can stop himself, “our relationship would be very different.”

“Oh, come on,” says Juudai, “you know you love me!” And oh, it’s irrational, but Jun feels his heart skip a tiny beat when Juudai says that. Yeah. Yeah, he does know he loves him, he loves him so much it hurts sometimes to breathe.

“In your dreams,” he says again. “I tolerate you, because otherwise you’d never leave me alone.” Jun regrets it, just for a second. It’s normal banter for the two of them, but… this is supposed to be something like a date. Maybe he should pretend to like other humans better or something? Pretend that insulting Juudai wasn’t nearly as much fun as dueling him? Juudai’s laughing, though, like it doesn’t even matter.

“You are pretty hard to leave alone,” agrees Juudai. Something about the tone is more serious than normal. There’s a blank honesty in Juudai’s tone that makes it seem more than just banter. Jun can’t help but recall that Juudai… hasn’t been around much lately. There’s been the video chats, though, and they were somewhat frequent.

(Fubuki had said something about Jun being the one to draw Juudai home again. Jun thought that sounded kind of like bullshit— Juudai had been coming to Japan to visit anyway— but it lingers. It lingers.)

“Some days I wish I was easier to leave alone,” Jun says instead.

“Ooh, you got fangirls bothering you now?” Juudai asks.

“Sometimes,” Jun says. “I _am_ the “Young Storm of Dueling””.

“Holy shit,” Juudai says, “they really call you that? I thought Shou was making fun of you!”

“It’s a perfectly decent nickname!” Jun says.

“They _call you that_? Oh, oh man, now I’ve got to start!” Juudai modulates the pitch of his voice down some. “After all, you are talking to a master duelist, Young Storm. In the ways of destructive, powerful dueling, you still have a lot to learn.” He cracks up while Jun realizes that Juudai, lowering his voice a little? Yeah, it just makes Jun more attracted again. It shouldn’t, since it’s a stupid parody of a wise old mentor, not a proper lower voice, but all Jun can think for a moment there is how that voice would sound doing other things…

The fantasies aren’t normally this bad, either! Listen, Jun’s normally good about this stuff. Jun knows that Juudai’s a moron but maybe he thinks he has a chance now.

“On second thought,” Jun says, “it’s an awful nickname. Never do that again.” He does not want to have to explain his reaction to a second one of those.

“Alright, _Thunder-kun_!”

“No!” Jun says.

“Manny?”

“Stop.”

“Jun-bug.”

“I’m begging you.”

“Oooooh, ooh, the— the Typhoon of Terror!”

“You just ruined that for me.”

“Jun, then,” Juudai says.

Jun sputters for a minute, but Juudai’s looking him right in the eyes with his own stupidly hypnotic eyes. Sometimes, Jun swears Juudai’s eyes don’t know what color to be, and they share that chaos with whoever they look at. If Jun’s supposed to be thunder, eyes like those are the electricity.

“Fine,” Jun says. “As long as you never call me one of those awful nicknames again.”

“Yaaaay,” Juudai says softly. “First-name privileges with Manjoume. It only took six years.”

“Has it been that long?” Manjoume asks after a moment.

“Yeah,” says Juudai. His eyes are distant for a second there. “It has.”

They both fall quiet. Jun looks down so that he doesn’t have to keep looking at Juudai, looking at his own hands as well. He swears even his hands are a little red. Six years. That seemed way too long, but they were both twenty. Six years. That didn’t seem long enough, either. Not long enough to hold everything that had bound them together in the first place— from enmity and duels to brainwashing and nightmares— and the things that made rifts between them— dark worlds and… and death, and death— and the things that brought them back together. Six years wasn’t enough to be unmade and remade in love, but…

“Juudai,” Jun starts.

“Your food, boys,” the waiter says.

“I’m twenty,” Juudai says, “totally an adult!” The waiter sniffs, and whatever moment had come across the two of them snaps, and Juudai immediately starts digging into his food, and they don’t talk for a little while longer.

* * *

Sometime while they’re eating, Winged Kuriboh appears. Jun and Juudai are mostly making light conversation while they eat. By “they”, Jun means Juudai. He truly _had_ gotten an absolutely massive shrimp dish, and he was tearing through it at a pretty high rate. It was messy and unrefined, and equally Juudai. Juudai had emoted so much that his hair had gotten even more ruffled. Jun, on the other hand… he hadn’t been eating much. He’d been picking at his salmon, mostly. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, really. Jun just wasn’t really hungry. Not the bad kind of “not really hungry” either, just some kind of it, picking at his food and conversing lightly.

Sometime during this, Winged Kuriboh appears. The fluffiest of Juudai’s monsters, true, but the cheerful blob of fur was also often among the most _annoying_ of Juudai’s monsters to deal with, too. Right now, though, they’re just hovering above the table.

“Hey, partner,” Juudai says, before going back to his food.

Winged Kuriboh bounces across the table to Jun. “Kuri kuri,” they say. They have narrowed eyes. They make an ‘I’m watching you’ symbol with their tiny, tiny hand.

“I won’t hurt him,” Jun whispers quietly.

“Huh?” says Juudai.

“Nothing,” says Jun, and they go back to eating.

* * *

It isn’t long until they’ve both eaten enough food to start conversing again. Juudai brings up the pro circuit again— “what’s it like on the pro circuit, anyway? I asked Edo once, but he’s not really typical, I bet”— and then it was off to the races.

“I had a manager,” Jun says, “who wanted me to change my outfit to yellow to match the whole thunder theme. He didn’t last long, but he almost got me to do it. Yellow with black thunderbolts. Would have had a black thunderbolt on my face as part of my makeup, and everything. It was supposed to be an image change, but to try to draw back the old kid fans of the whole Ojama-based persona thing? Not like I don’t use those little bastards anyway, they won’t shut up if I don’t, but he wanted me to be more appealing to kids…”

“He tried to dress you up like Pikachu,” Juudai says. “Fantastic!” He gets this strange, dreamy smile on his face. “You’d be adorable! I should get you Pikachu ears and _especially_ a little jagged Pikachu tail.”

“No!” says Jun, quickly. “I have enough managers and marketing agents who want to dress me up. As it is, I’m probably going to get more stage makeup, to really sell the whole… ‘bold thunder image’.”

“You’d be so cute,” Juudai says. 

“Shut up!” Jun says. “You’d just give me more cutesy nicknames! No way I’d do that!” Juudai laughs.

“I don’t know, maybe for the next time we do Halloween, we both dress up as Pokemon. You can be Pikachu, and I can be…”

“Bidoof,” Jun says immediately, and Juudai makes a mock-offended gasp.

“Lucario, obviously!” He pauses. “Or, like… something more badass than Bidoof!”

“No, you’re a Bidoof,” Jun says. “Bumbling, puffy, brunette… I see no difference.”

“Laugh it up, Pikachu,” Juudai says.

* * *

“I visited Venice again,” Juudai says. “It felt like tempting fate slightly, since last time I visited Venice things got super weird. It’s nice there, though. I like how quiet it is, since there aren’t any cards. I mean, it gets crowded, since all the cruise ships stop there and stuff, and that’s less cool, but there aren’t any cards! Also it’s like, super pretty.”

“You can appreciate architecture?” Jun says.

“I can totally appreciate architecture,” Juudai huffs, “and the cool-ass duel monsters that were hanging around there, okay? It’s a very dramatic city, lots of canals, there are cool water monsters there, okay?” He pauses. “Actually, this weird thing happened to me in Venice this time, too. Nothing as bizarre as the last time…”

“That story you still won’t actually tell me…”

“…but there were these weird guys in long-nosed masks, all decorated and painted like Venetian masks are supposed to be but all super-long nosed…”

“How do these things even happen to you?”

“Anyway, they were trying to do some ritual involving, like, nurse burn?”

“Because these things don’t happen to normal people.”

“…And Yubel pointed them out to me, so we landed in the middle of the big spooky circle they’d drawn on the ground and started fighting, but they all had these— they all ran Skull Servants, and they were doing this bullshit thing that let them all share graveyards, so they’d summon King and it would have _so many attack points_ …”

“You’re kidding.”

“No joke, they summoned King and it had, like, 10000 attack points all at once, and if it weren’t for Winged Kuriboh, I would have been super dead! But then…”

* * *

“How’s Asuka been doing?” Juudai asks.

“How would I know better than Fubuki?” Jun asks.

“I mean…” Juudai trails off. “I guess not?” There isn’t much food on his plate left. “I thought I’d ask about it, though. I know you’re close, in a weird way.”

“You saw her the other day, didn’t you?” Jun asks, because there’s more to this than just Asuka, and Jun can’t actually pick out what it is.

“…you connect better these days,” Juudai says with a small laugh. “I’m not around enough.”

“You aren’t,” Jun says, “you’re right.”

“…thought you’d argue it,” Juudai says.

“Nah,” Jun says. “I’m feeling brutally honest.”

“Ouch, Jun.” Juudai looks away. “I’m trying, right? To talk to everyone more often. Sometimes, I don’t even know what to say, though. I mean, what can I even say? It’s not like it’s easy to talk to people after you’ve… taken their whole world away, basically.”

“You gave me mine,” Jun blurts out before he can take it back. He takes a deep breath. “No matter how much of a moron you are, I wouldn’t be Manjoume Thunder without you. I’d be another Manjoume brother.” Juudai has to know how much Jun wants just about anything _but_ being another Manjoume brother, these days. He’s stepped out from under his brothers’ shadows more and more. When people mention Manjoume nowadays, they’re talking about him. Still. It lingers. It lingers.

“Huh,” Juudai says. “You’re being way too nice!” He smiles, though, and not in that fake ‘Juudai avoiding thinking’ way, but in the way that Juudai smiles when he means it, the way that doesn’t just light up the room, but causes the whole room to sparkle and gleam under the weight of it. It hits Jun in the chest. “Did someone swap you out with a body double? Or— you aren’t possessed, are you?”

“Trust me, Juudai,” Jun says. “If I was possessed, I’d feel more sorry for the spirit.”

Juudai laughs again, and they step away from the conversation and the question Jun didn’t answer.

* * *

“Care for a desert?” Juudai looks at the menu longingly.

“Sure,” Jun says, trying to judge what thing Juudai’s looking at. “One of those chocolate lava cakes. Bring the check with it.”

“Fine,” says the waiter, going to the back. Juudai looks back at Jun.

“It’s yours,” Jun says.

“Thanks,” Juudai says. Outside, it’s gotten properly dark. It might have even gotten a little chilly in the cold. Jun didn’t bring a jacket, and Juudai didn’t look like he brought one either. It has the hailmarks of Fubuki all over it, actually, sending two people who are dating out without jackets for no reason other than to make them have to stand closer when it gets dark. Jun would complain to Fubuki later, but the date’s gone well. Sure, they haven’t talked much about romance, but…

Jun hasn’t talked this much in ages.

The waiter comes back with the cake. Jun takes the check before Juudai can, paying for the bill before Juudai can try to pay with the money he’d somehow gotten. (If the conversations of the night could be believed: won in an underground duel before breaking up that same underground duel, a surfing contest, and ‘on the ground in Arizona’, which wasn’t descriptive but given that no one had actually known Juudai was _in_ Arizona, was a fascinating picture into how Juudai was everywhere and nowhere all at once these days.)

Juudai pouts. “We should split it,” he says.

“No,” says Jun. “You needed the food.” It’s a weak excuse, but Jun wants to do this much. “I want to be the one to take this, got it?” It’s not exactly pride. It’s more like… like…

“Okay,” Juudai says at last. “Thanks.” He eats the cake in silence. Jun plays with the stem of the chocolate flower. Then Juudai stands up, chocolate still on his face, and grins at Jun. “Lets get back to your apartment before it gets too dark!”

“It’s already pitch black outside,” Jun says, before slipping outside with Juudai. It is, in fact, pitch black, and Juudai is all scuffed up with chocolate on his face, and Jun is getting tired but not that tired. He’s not exactly electrified from the date, but he doesn’t have to be. It was a date, after all, a first date together. He’d had… fun.

“I got you this before coming,” Jun says, handing over the chocolate rose.

“It’s chocolate?” Juudai says. “Oh, man, thanks!” He immediately unwraps it and bites into it hard, only getting more chocolate on his lips. They walk quietly for a little longer.

“Man, we really did talk for hours, huh?” says Juudai.

“Yeah,” says Jun, before pausing, and with concern, asking: “are you limping?”

“No,” says Juudai.

“You are,” Jun says. “You’re limping.”

“It’s nothing,” says Juudai.

“It’s not nothing!” Jun says. “You need to stop hurting yourself. You absolute moron. Come on, I’ll call a cab.”

“I want to walk,” Juudai says.

“You’re limping,” Jun says.

“Please,” says Juudai.

“I’m calling a cab,” repeats Jun, and Juudai huffs.

“You shouldn’t worry so much!” He laughs. “It really is nothing. You don’t have to look so grumpy after everything.”

“I do,” grumps Jun.

“Come on,” needles Juudai. “Why worry?”

There’s still chocolate on Juudai’s lips, and Jun’s angry, but in that moment, in the light… Juudai is as much Juudai as ever. He’s making fun of a life that kept on knocking him over for some reason. He’s scuffed up and messy, a mess, a childish mess, and yet… here he was, trying to get Jun to stop worrying, like the fact that Juudai’s limping is more of an inconvenience for Jun than it is an inconvenience for Juudai. He’s so, so… so _Juudai_ , and so absolutely himself, and Jun’s been staring at him all night. Juudai’s dumb wears off on people too, so it’s not entirely Jun’s fault he has no impulse control.

He grabs Juudai’s tie, pulls him closer, and kisses him.

* * *

When Jun was fifteen, and first fell in love, he had fantasies about what kissing people would be like.

He always thought it would be like fireworks. It would be big, and climactic, and would make his heart race. It would feel better than anything in the world, and it would be everything he wanted. The fantasy had shifted over time some. He knew kisses weren’t magical fireworks by now, for one.

This kiss tastes like chocolate, and Juudai, and is wet and messy. Jun hits his nose against Juudai’s nose in the process of trying to pull it off, and their lips fit together awkwardly. It lasts a long moment, but it’s nothing like fireworks. Sure, it makes Jun’s heart race, but fireworks? No, not quite that.

It does almost taste like ozone, though, between two storms.

* * *

Jun pulls back. Juudai stares, looking more lost than Jun could remember seeing out of the (boy man best friend) who had made himself out of cheap laughs and smiles where anyone else would just admit they weren’t okay. Jun worries, for just a moment, that he’s misread. That it was the wrong time to kiss. Well, in some ways, it was— they’d just been arguing, and that wasn’t exactly romantic…

Juudai touches his lips. “Oh,” he says.

“Yes,” Jun says. “We were on a date. I love you, moron.”

“ _Oh_ ,” says Juudai. “That’s great!”

“That’s all you have to say?” Jun says, automatically.

“I mean…” Juudai rubs the back of his head. “If… if I’d misread the situation, I woulda felt really awkward giving you these.” He fishes something out of his pocket, and in a moment, Jun realizes what they are: Duel Monsters cards. Juudai hands them over.

“A-Assault Core”.

“B-Buster Drake”.

“C-Crush Wyvern”.

“ABC-Buster Drake”.

“A-to-Z-Dragon Buster Canon”.

At once, the three new machine union monsters appear. The wyvern hisses at Juudai as he hands them over, but it’s a pleased hiss as the machine unions line up behind Jun like they’ve been waiting for weeks to do so. The fusion cards are nice, too— he can only imagine what will happen now that he has this amazing way to combine all of his unions. Jun is speechless for a moment.

“I ran into A-Assault Core while I was in Arizona,” Juudai says, “and, uh, I found a way to make sure the spirit got a good card to go with them. ‘Course, they hate me, so they wouldn’t have accepted anything else, but I told them all about you and then they showed up with friends that kept on chewing on me and stuff and wouldn’t go away. I couldn’t just come here, though, not without making sure…”

“I love them,” Jun says.

“Yeah?” Juudai says.

“Yeah,” Jun says. “…it also makes me feel better to know you didn’t bring a knife onto an airplane.”

“Oh,” Juudai says. “Yeah. Ahahahah…” He rubs the back of his head again and turns a pretty pink. “So, uh, are we dating now? For real?”

“For real,” Jun says. “Now, come on. We’re calling a cab.”

“Wait, really? Even after all that? How’re the ABCs gonna fit?”

“They’re gonna suck it up,” Jun says, and Buster Drake makes a very pleased mechanical noise.

“You yell at them and they like you, huh?” says Juudai. “Aw, man, I shoulda thought of that…”

They wait on the curb for the cab together, and once they’re back at Jun’s apartment, they curl up together in Jun’s bed, and Juudai lets Jun hold onto him like he won’t ever leave for just a little bit longer.

* * *

In the end, Juudai leaves, but promises it will only be a month, max, that he’s gone— in exchange for getting the ABCs made into cards, he’d had to promise Pegsasus to do some spirit-related hunt in South America. Jun decides that’s acceptable. He needs Juudai gone in order to figure out how he’s going to explain this to the press. He can’t keep it _secret—_ his heart feels like its bursting. Better to expose himself to all the gossip rags than have the papers expose him for him.

They drive to the airport together, excitedly talking about the possibilities the ABCs open up for Jun’s deck. As they walk up to security, Jun kisses Juudai’s cheek.

It’s nice. It’s really nice.

“Hurt him,” says a suddenly more feminine voice from Juudai’s mouth, “and they won’t find the body.”

“Oh, come on,” says Jun, “first Winged Kuriboh and now you?”

“I,” says Yubel, “remember who caused the seven spirit keys to get lost.”

“In the name of love!” Jun says. “It was in the name of love!”

“I’m always watching,” warns Yubel, before Juudai’s blinking in confusion and apologizing, and then, all too soon, shuffled through airport security while Jun is left watching outside as he leaves.

* * *

Jun goes home and screams into his pillow.

“Oooh,” says Ojama Green, “relationship drama.”

(Some things never change.)


End file.
